Virtually Sleeping Beauty – K.M.Robinson

Blurb: “She may be doing battle in the virtual world, but in the real world, they can’t wake her up.”

K.M.Robinson has become known for fairytale retellings and Virtually Sleeping Beauty is no different. In this novella, she takes another classic tale and, this time, gives it a sci-fi twist.

The story follows Royce who learns that a girl called Rora has been playing the virtual reality game for longer than the allotted time. Becoming the hero, he delves into the universe hoping that he can be the one to break her free.

From the outset, the tension is palpable: there is the real sense that Rora’s life is on the line if the cast of characters don’t work quick to get her out of the game. Given this is a novella, I was glad to see this woven into the plot from the very first page. I thought it was a really interesting choice to tell the story from Royce’s point of view as it made him an onlooker to what Rora had to do due to the limitations of the game; he spends a lot of the story looking on, unable to help. Everything in this novella just seemed to pull together so perfectly that when I turned the page and was met with the acknowledgements, I felt almost cheated.

I did have a few typos in my kindle copy so I wish more time had been taken to make sure these errors weren’t present, and I wish the story was a little more developed as I would’ve liked to see more details and places within the game itself.

But overall, K.M.Robinson adds another marvellous read to her catalogue.